Viva la revolución: Cuban social justice will survive American reconciliation

John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring.
You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1

Cuba's detractors have long been guilty of dismissing the achievements of the Cuban Revolution, while some of its supporters have lapsed into romanticizing the hardship its people have endured as a consequence of its isolation.

By rights, Cuba should not have the enormous global profile it
enjoys, and has enjoyed going back many decades. A small island
nation with a population of just over 11 million people, in a
region of the world associated with underdevelopment, Cuba's
international status belies its size to an extent to which no
other nation comes close. The reason for this small country's
unparalleled status is of course the revolution it experienced
(1953-1959) and its extraordinary ability to defy the might of
the United States - just 90 miles off its northern coast - as a
beacon of social and economic justice.

Those who defend Cuba and its socialist system justifiably point
to its achievements in education, healthcare, and the role of its
doctors and medical professionals across the world in disaster
zones, where their solidarity missions are a ubiquitous presence.
Most recently, the role of Cuban medical professionals in tacking
the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was even acknowledged in the
pages of the US newspaper of record, the New York Times. This in
itself is a measure of the new chapter that has opened up in
relations between Cuba and its old enemy and nemesis.

What should not be forgotten as this process of normalization
goes forward is that Cuba and its people will by no means be the
sole beneficiaries. Already the full extent of Cuba's leading
role in medical and biomedical research has been revealed with
the development of a groundbreaking lung cancer vaccine, called
Cimavax, which has been shared with US medical researchers with
the objective of making it available outside Cuba. Such a gesture
of solidarity on the part of the Cuban government is enshrined
within the country's socialist constitution, but even so it
remains remarkable given the concerted efforts by successive US
administrations to starve Cuba into submission over four decades.

As backdoor negotiations regarding the normalization of relations
between the US and Cuba continue, many pro-Cuban voices have
offered a counsel of despair, forecasting the country and its
socialist system's inevitable demise at the hands of a US
superpower which, they warn, can only have bad and dishonorable
intentions where the Cuban Revolution and its achievements are
concerned.

But such pronouncements are rooted in the romanticization of a
revolution that has produced not only the achievements mentioned,
but also unremitting hardship for its people due to the chronic
shortages that have been a by-product of the embargo. Anyone
visiting the country could not fail to notice the poverty and
crumbling infrastructure of a society whose decades-long
isolation has proved a heavy price for its refusal to succumb to
the inordinate pressure leveled against it by an economic embargo
that has been biblical in scope.

It is both unrealistic and grotesque to expect the Cuban people
to suffer any longer. As we saw in the case of the former Soviet
Union, scarcity is a corrosive that if allowed to continue beyond
a certain point inevitably leads to social collapse with
potentially disastrous consequences. This is not to suggest that
the Cuban people have stopped supporting their government and a
system that while leaving them materially poor has made them rich
in dignity. Clearly the majority of Cubans support their
government. Nevertheless, how long can people be expected to live
on dignity alone? Aren't they entitled to the same level of
material comfort that most people in the West take for granted?

To ask this question is surely to answer it.

That said, material comfort and inequality in the West are two
sides of the same coin. The danger of Cuba lapsing into a similar
dynamic as market forces begin to assert their dominance is one
the Cuban leadership has been well aware of. In the wake of the
most difficult decade of its recent history (known by Cubans as
the ‘Special Period,’ it marks the severe economic crisis that
began in 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, forcing the
small island nation to radically transform major sectors of the
economy, including industry and health), the island lost its main
ally and economic partner and Cuba was forced to adapt to a new
reality - or perish. The situation led to the establishment of a
tourism industry designed to take advantage of the island's
Caribbean climate and some of the most unspoiled beaches anywhere
in the world.

But along with this success came a dual economy, split between
the state-controlled sector responsible for the provision of the
island's much-vaunted healthcare, education, pensions, and
disability benefits, as well as subsidized housing, utilities,
food, and other essentials, and a dollar-based, market-driven
sector underpinning this emerging and growing tourism industry.
Cubans working within the tourist sector have long enjoyed higher
incomes than those working in other sectors, resulting in a
growing income gap that unless ameliorated would have begun to
weaken the bonds of solidarity that constitute the linchpin of
social cohesion within the country.

Another growing source of inequality has been caused by the
ability of Cubans with relatives living in exile in the US to
benefit from the remittance of US dollars, proving the country's
largest single source of hard currency over the past 20 years and
main driver of the Cuban economy. The Cuban government, currently
led by President Raul Castro, has proved adept at responding to
this development, allowing for example the expansion of its
private sector and opening up of its economy to foreign
investment.

No socialist economy or system can exist in splendid isolation
and the process of normalization between Cuba and the West is a
non-negotiable condition of Cuba's survival as a beacon of
justice in a region scarred by a history of injustice at the
hands of US imperialism. The Cuban people, justifiably proud and
protective of achievements that are testament to their ingenuity
and commitment to the ideals of a revolution whose survival has
been nothing short of incredible, are entering a new chapter in
their history.

The revolution continues but on a different basis. People in the
US and throughout the West are about to learn for the first time
why Cuba's system of solidarity and justice has and will continue
to be a victory for human progress.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.